The unions still have a job to do, representing their members’ interests to governments and parliaments. And I think collective agreements still have a role, alongside markets and laws.
The president has been more than willing to challenge the National Rifle Association, but that is like a Republican president standing up to labor unions – not a move that risks anything with his core supporters. Mr. Obama could show some real bravery by taking on Hollywood.
At school, up to the age of sixteen, I found history boring, for we were studying the Industrial Revolution, which was all about Acts, Trade Unions and the factory system, and I wanted to know about people, because it is people who make history.
The dissolution of the trade unions was in the air then.
There was segregated unions, which was a real problem for me because – especially as I was working in the recording scene, I had flack from the white union for hiring black musicians. I had flack from the black musician by hiring white musicians.
When the unions were fighting me 45 years ago, they could never beat me.
In a word, unions are not entitled to use retirement funds to raise costs at the companies where the funds are invested. And unionized corporations are not required to permit this. Rather, management trustees and the Labor Department are obligated to prevent it.
That’s what unions do. They can get money, they can get support, they can get manpower.
Manufacturing and other unskilled professions that were union jobs, that allowed people to live a middle-class life, are disappearing both because unions are disappearing and because of the global nature of the economy.
I just think the most important aspect in being able to have a productive relationship between the teachers’ unions and the districts and the states that they’re dealing with is that the person sitting across the table from them should not have received the largest campaign contributions from the teachers’ union itself.
Government unions should not be allowed to influence the public officials they are lobbying, and sitting across the bargaining table from, through campaign donations and expenditures.
Teacher unions are an interest group that acts in defense of their own interests, which means the union bosses’ interests, not the members.
Many small businesses rely on small financial institutions, like credit unions and community banks, to meet their capital requirements. Without them, these small businesses would have to close their doors.
There is nothing that says unions have a God-given right to be there. We have to work at it and make ourselves relevant to every section of the workforce.
Unless public officials are wealthy and fund their own campaigns, the only place they can turn to is lobbyists and institutions like labor unions and corporations.
